The Diversity in the Curriculum Awards celebrate and reward Pitt faculty who have participated in the Provost’s Diversity Institute for Faculty Development and who are making diversity and inclusiveness a part of their teaching practice. EPI's MARNIE BERTOLET, along with four other Pitt faculty, were awarded for their efforts in integrating diversity and inclusion concepts into their course and curriculum.

Pitt Medicine grad Kellie Smith leads a group at John's Hopkins that has developed a novel technique to detect and monitor anti-tumor T cells using a simple liquid biopsy approach. The technique is termed MANAFEST (mutation associated neoantigen functional expansion of specific T cells). Smith is an instructor of Oncology in the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who worked with IDM chair ...

NPR - President Trump announced a plan that lists dozens of "potential" steps his team may take to lower drug prices. "On the positive side, I will say that HHS does seem to be paying close attention to this issue," says HPM's WALID GELLAD. "On the negative side, it's a bunch of questions, not a specific plan for how to proceed."

A $500 Student Travel Award has been awarded to MIKE KUJAWA (IDM '21) to attend the 37th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Virology. The conference is hosted by the University of Maryland and will take place July 14-18, 2018.

For the past nineteen years, public recognition has been given to a faculty member who has made outstanding contributions to the University through service in the University Senate. Members of the Senate Executive Committee were unanimous in their selection of HPM's WES ROHRER for the 2018 award for his service as Budget Policies chair. Congratulations, Dr. Rohrer!

WESA-FM - Cultivating Health for Success is a program geared towards people that are homeless, suffering from chronic conditions, and have a history of unplanned care. “People who face housing instability often come to our health care system with high costs and high needs for care,” said ERIC ROBERTS, HPM professor. Patients in the program get housing vouchers and one-on-one help from case managers and nurses.

UPMC - “Public health emergencies are issues that every community faces,” said HPM's TINA BATRA HERSHEY. “To address these threats... We created the Tribal Legal Preparedness Project to assist tribal nations interested in expanding their legal preparedness capacity.” The project will provide free training modules and a resource library.

UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh announced the appointment of ANNE NEWMAN, department chair of EPI, as the clinical director of the Aging Institute of UPMC and Pitt. In this role, she will lead efforts to translate research into clinical practice and policy. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity...to collaborate with so many outstanding researchers in aging across the university," says Newman.

CNBC - New gene therapies that aim to cure hemophilia are on the horizon. Leerink analysts said the treatments could cost $1.5 million or more. Treating hemophilia can incur between $580,000 and $800,000 per year. For that reason, a potential one-time $1.5 million cost is perceived by many to be a bargain compared with a lifetime of chronic therapy. Others, like HPM's WALID GELLAD, see it as excessive.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - Working with dendrites, what he calls "the quarterbacks of the immune system," IDM's ROBBIE MAILLIARD and colleagues are applying the budding field of TNT research to HIV. Now, they are investigating whether drugs that are commonly used to lower cholesterol levels could be repurposed to control viral infections.

TRIB LIVE - Environmental planning and design officials plan to reveal a draft report of Oakmont's pedestrian transportation plan this month. The plan is being paid for partially through an $11,000 grant from Pitt Public Health's WalkWorks program. Project Manager CAROLYN YAGLE said they will highlight findings during a presentation and take questions from residents afterward. "This is a draft set of recommendations for both policy and project i...

ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - The past quarter century has brought a striking decline in earlier-than-expected deaths among blacks in the U.S. “We were surprised by these findings because they demonstrated such dramatic improvement,” said DEAN DONALD BURKE. “Our study shows that racial disparity in health outcomes is not inevitable. It can change, and the gap can be narrowed,” said BIOST's JEANINE BUCHANICH.

Environmental and Occupational Health has traditionally offered the Keleti Award at Dean’s Day to recognize the presentation that demonstrated excellence in environmental health. This year’s Keleti winner is RAHEL BIRRU (PhD '18).

The Department of Biostatistics prize went to JOANNE BEER (PhD '18). She presented a poster on Predicting Social Responsiveness Scale scores from fMRI data using structured sparse penalized regression.

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YNGBLKPGH. What does Pittsburgh mean to 140 young black professionals?

PITTWIRE - Pitt alum Brian Burley (BUS ’13G) continues to highlight young black leaders and create community ties through his www.YngBlkPgh.com site. This social enterprise started with his book “YNGBLKPGH” (Young Black Pittsburgh) which features more than 140 African-American professionals und... (07/23/2018)

PITTWIRE - Doctoral alumna CHELSEA PALLATINO (BCHS ’17) has been awarded the Steven D. Manners Faculty Development Award by the University Center for Social and Urban Research to support her pilot research project entitled “Co-occurring Intimate Partner Violence and Substance Use: Understanding B... (07/19/2018)

Innovation Institute recognized at Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education

PITTWIRE - The University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute was recognized for its commitment to building programs that accelerate innovations from the laboratory and research into commercialization at the recent Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education. Alumni EVA... (07/02/2018)

ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Several states are likely dramatically underestimating the effect of opioid-related deaths because of incomplete death certificate reporting, with Pennsylvania leading the pack, according to a new analysis by Pitt Public Health. “Proper allocation of resources for the opioid e... (07/19/2018)

Pittsburgh finds overdose risk quintuples with opioid and Benzodiazepine use

ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - In the first 90 days of concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use, the risk of opioid-related overdose increases five-fold compared to opioid-only use among Medicare recipients. "Having multiple prescribers who are not in communication increases the risk for overdose,” says HPM... (07/02/2018)

Pitt Public Health finds ‘good cholesterol’ may not always be good for postmenopausal women

ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Postmenopausal factors may have an impact on the heart-protective qualities of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) – also known as ‘good cholesterol.' “The results of our study are particularly interesting to both the public and clinicians because total HDL cholesterol is still us... (06/25/2018)